Sustainability, Creativity and Culture

Education must go beyond “interdisciplinary”. By changing the structure and purposes of education… it aims toward the establishment of a community of life that includes future generations…all races and nations, rich and poor, and the natural world. The essence of community is the celebration of interdependence…its indicators are…peace, harmony, justice and participation. (David Orr)

What does education look like when ‘life’ is central to the enterprise? What kind of education is being called for in Orr’s vision that moves us toward a ‘community of life’? How would a ‘Living” school’ look compared to traditional schools with which we are so familiar? To answer these questions, we need to understand more deeply the ways in which life and living are embedded in a vision of education that sustains the individual, the social, and the biotic and to see the three as inextricably interconnected. Philosophy can help us here.

Philosophy helps us focus on the experiential, and the basic tenet that our thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, and behaviours all arise as direct result of our contact with the world. Our existence is a “… network of relations; our being is not locked up inside us, but is in fact spread throughout this web of worldly interactions in which our existence continually unfolds,” says eco-psychologist Andy Fisher.

This concept of experience as interaction has profound implications for a vision of education predicated on experience and an experiential approach grounded in the world - the social world, the human built world, but also the natural world. At this point in our human history it is not a strange thing to pay close attention, to be aware of the demands of the natural world, and to understand fully that we, too, are nature and to appreciate the profound implications this realization has on our lives.

We interact with the world through a bodily felt awareness; our experience is an interactive process. Honouring our embodied interaction and learning to listen and focus on what we truly need as human beings to reach our full potential requires an experiential sense and speaks to the cultivation of the dialogical nature of the Living School concept. It is a rejection of a mind/body dualism in which we are isolated from our bodies and living in our heads.

If we think about how education was structured not so long ago with children seated in hard desks in serried rows for long stretches of time, the sense of the separation is not hard to grasp. The Living School concept gives authority to education that is based on an organismic wisdom of the experiential and attends to what young people, children and their teachers are experiencing. It is education motivated by life forwarding processes, by the creativity that emerges out of the life process where new energy, ideas and innovation can emerge and develop.

The Living School fosters contact and dialogue with the world. Con-tact connotes the experiencing of learning from life, of the sense of touch, of being energized and physically moved through our relationships. Recent pedagogical approaches associated with 21st century learning such as project-based, real-world, authentic and deep learning, in many respects, reflect this meaningful contact. By sharing, taking risks, and coming into contact with others and the natural world, we are changed and such meaningful contact with the world carries our lives forward. Dialogue recognizes the power of language and conversation and the importance of finding one’s voice and being truly heard. It involves honouring children’s inherent, spontaneous interest in the world and celebrating with young people their interests, or as David Jardine points out ‘…their inter esse, their being in the middle of things.”

Teachers in a Living School are challenged to find, or re-discover the joy, the mystery, and inherent love in learning about the world and become guides and facilitators who respect and nurture the integrity of what comes natural to children, an awe and wonderment for the world. This integrity is also related to pursuing interests across boundaries, across disciplines to follow them where authentic contact and dialogue lead.

The Living School recognizes that an integrated curriculum is difficult and messy, yet such a curriculum has an inherent integrity for the two words are related. Yet, the wholeness of a curriculum lived with children and young people leads to movement, vitality, liveliness and, yes, difficulty and risk, that are generative and life forwarding. Thus, a Living School involves approaches to learning that enable students and teachers to be fully engaged in the depth of things in ways that enhance well-being for all.

** for in-depth look at what a Living School can look like, go to http://living.school/ and explore what is being proposed in Australia.

This summer the wildly successful second annual RibFest 2016 was held at Open Hearth Park in Sydney, Cape Breton. The event is organized by the Rotary Clubs in the area and funds raised are donated to the Hospice Palliative Care Society of Cape Breton County. The organizers, no doubt, have plans for the third annual next summer.

The need for end of life services is great in Cape Breton. The money raised is badly needed also. The Hospice Palliative Care website reports, “Thanks to the exceptional efforts by the Rotary Clubs of CBRM’s Sydney RibFest 2016, the Hospice Palliative Care Society of Cape Breton will be the recipient of $70,000…”

Hospice Palliative Care provides compassionate end of life care for people predominately suffering from cancer, but also end stage respiratory, and cardiac disease as well as other terminal illnesses. There are future plans for a hospice residence as the demand for palliative services continues to grow.

Without doubt, support for hospice services is important. And RibFest is the medium chosen by which money is raised. On the first evening of the three day event, 35,000 people passed through the gates - an incredible number for any event, anywhere. The organizers and vendors had 90,000 pounds of pork ribs on hand to meet the demand. However, this was not enough. Ribs had to be sourced across the province to meet the unprecedented appetite of the attendees. The final number was a whopping 112,000 pounds of ribs consumed. One volunteer gushed, “Sydney went through more ribs than Ottawa on Canada Day!!”

And this was said without a trace of irony, but in the spirit of true accomplishment - a feat to be celebrated.

So the prospects of raising funds for a healthcare initiative by promoting the consumption of tons of high fat, grilled meat slathered in sugary sauces and marinades sends a troubling message to the people, the families and, especially, the children and young people of Cape Breton.

In light of the disturbing health statistics in the region, raising health funds through an event like a RibFest should result in some serious soul searching by community and health care leaders. Some may argue it is the moral equivalent of raising funds for an alcohol treatment centre by having a massive beer and wine tasting event.

In this fundraising case, the medium is the message. We have to ask, “Is the ‘RibFest’ message one we want to promote in our community?” Or, maybe, we find other ways to raise funds for healthcare that promote healthy food, that reflect an ethic of care for people, for the environment and for the overall well-being of our communities.

Representatives from faculties of education, NGOs, ministries of education, policy agencies, and school boards shared their expertise and experience to develop new initiatives, plan potential collaborations, and strengthen their networks. The leadership of Cape Breton University in pre-service teacher education for sustainability was widely recognized at the Roundtable.

Since the June meeting at Trent University the results of working groups and roundtables were collated, transcribed, and analyzed. The information, knowledge, and expertise provided by the Roundtable delegates, will result in the creation of a National Action Plan and Declaration. When published, the National Action Plan will provide the blue print to make environmental and sustainability education central to all pre-service teacher education programs across the country.

Cape Breton University is ready to continue its leadership role and to assist in the developing of national networks across faculties and disciplines thereby enabling joint discussions that will explore and theorize relationships and issues among social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability.
These processes of inquiry, theory development, and critical dialogue that were evident at the National Roundtable at Trent will continue through the Action Plan.

Open dialogue is crucial to the process, as opposed to imposing the concepts of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) on others. That people interpret ESE differently was readily apparent at the Roundtable.
Yet, this diversity of interests and priorities should be viewed as a positive opening and a way to develop a critical discourse to make environmental and sustainable education an open question for examination in the unique socio-political and socio-ecological contexts within which we work.

Our lives bring us to many places, some we can call home, others we simply cannot. But, ultimately, on some level, we choose to stay, to live in a place, for whatever reason. Most often, the choosing feels like it is has been done for us. The reasons are as varied as our lives. Early in my teaching career, much to the surprise of friends and some family, I chose to take a position in a small coastal community in north east Newfoundland. I remember having to justify that decision to raised eyebrows and skeptical, incredulous stares. And yet the choice, the decision, did not seem a conscious, planned or deliberate one.

I felt comfortable. The place in which my wife and I were going to raise a family was a good fit. I bought a home overlooking the ocean. My backyard led into endless stands of spruce and fir forest. The teaching staff was close knit; the students warm and friendly. The years spent there have not been without their challenges. Coming from homes without a tradition of the literacy and skills valued by mainstream economy and culture, many children had special needs and required consistent, thoughtful care and attention. The collapse of the cod fishery in the early nineties had a profound effect on families and children dispersing them throughout Canada, undermining self-reliant communities with strong traditions of valuing intergenerational knowledge and systems of mutual support.

As a teacher, I lived with children in a region once home to the greatest biomass on the planet. The incredible diversity and numbers of fish species that swam the plankton-rich waters of the North Atlantic stood not only as testament to the miracle of the life generating power of the Earth, but also to the unknowable depths of human greed and the capacity to destroy and lay waste to that same miraculous fecundity. Working through the lens of critical pedagogy I attempted to address my concerns by devoting several weeks of my language arts program to exploring the social, political and environmental constructs responsible for the collapse of the ocean ecosystem. The exploration was primarily expository; letter writing, debates and research essays. But for the most part, this approach missed the mark. I never felt as if I was truly allowing the kids to connect with what was truly happening in their lives and communities. The same was true in other school subjects.

Really, what was happening in their lives and in their homes rarely influenced what was happening in the classroom and perhaps more sadly, vice versa. As the ocean was plundered and decimated, the children dutifully categorized the “natural resources” and diagrammed the food cycle. Meanwhile, their communities died a slow, inexorable death. A way of life that had sustained these communities for almost two centuries was no longer available to its children. Hope and promise were on the wane. Many children grappled with the prospect of leaving a place that was their home.

But there was an opening. It was in my students’ personal, expressive writing -the journals and poetry, the artworks and collage. The writing spoke to me of children struggling with their sense of place in a rapidly changing reality and it led me to look elsewhere for insight and understanding into how their schooling might make a relevant, authentic response to what was happening all around them. I looked, to language and literature – to poetry and fiction. I felt that imagination, creativity, the power of language may provide another way of knowing more deeply how to dwell in place. I wanted to allow children to experience their place, to experience the complex and subtle interrelationships between humans and the living landscape that surrounds them. I wanted to explore how children experience and respond to literature, particularly poetry, that reflects interactions and interrelationships between the human, and as David Abram says, “the more than human.”

I wanted to know more about how to do this. So I left and pursued doctoral studies.

I returned to the small coastal community having been away for two years. It was August and I was about to start my “research project” in September, to work with the children of coastal Newfoundland to better understand the intersection between language, literature and ecological literacy.

In the waning weeks of that summer, as I prepared to return to the classroom and to the lives of the children, I was reminded of the immediacy and rawness of life here. Tragic events in August set the tone for my return and determined how it was to unfold during that fast approaching autumn.

News swept through the villages on a fine mid August afternoon of a drowning. A boy I had taught just prior to my departure for doctoral studies had been swimming in a small pond with his brother and cousin just a short walk from their community. Men from the village using a small boat retrieved his body; gingerly snagging his bathing suit with hand lines, they brought him to the surface - an all too familiar image in the human history of coastal Newfoundland. The boy would have been in my classroom in a few short weeks. Now I was attending his funeral. I remembered him as a quiet, sensitive boy who enjoyed reading and drawing, filling his writing portfolio with wonderful stories, poems and sketches. He was communally remembered for these qualities on that sad day.

I sat with an overflow crowd in the tiny parish hall to watch and listen to the funeral on television, as the church next door was full. Outside, the branches of small aspen brushed the window; a blue sky and freshening breeze brought little relief to those inside fanning themselves with thin Mass booklets. As I waited for the many mourners to be seated, I turned the booklet in my hands. On the last page was a photograph of the boy’s smiling face; the picture had been cropped out of a larger shot - on a beach, perhaps, for grey cliff was visible in the background.

It was written below, in a wistfully short paragraph, that he loved writing, poetry, and life in his small community. The winter woods, the ponds, the beaches, and the coves intersected with all aspects of his young life, of who he was. Yet, it was particularly poignant and painful to think that this relationship somehow figured in his death.

In the intervening days between his death and funeral I listened for the words of anger, of resolve to never allow children to swim at that pond, to fence off the area, that it was unsupervised and dangerous (thoughts that flooded my mind during those days), but I didn’t hear them. Children had always swum there, just as they played on the wharves and rowed their punts around the coves. There was no anger. But I was shaken. In a matter of days I would be asking these same young people I saw sitting around me in that little church hall to share with me through reading, writing and reflection their relationship with their larger living landscapes, to activate and nurture an attunement for the natural places they live. I was troubled; my return to the classroom was to be filled with a newfound pedagogy of connecting children to literature meant to affirm life, and here I was facing, what I perceived to be, a cruel and meaningless death.

As I looked into their deeply saddened faces I realized the arrogance of thinking of the children’s lives as my ‘project.’ I was humbled and the false assurance of a seeker of knowledge, a research grant holder became an emptiness, an openness, and in a sense, a kind of poverty. The word poverty comes to me through its original meaning from the Latin paucaus – little or few, and parare – to prepare. This emptiness, or poverty, I felt was a kind of preparation- not of a scholarly variety - but a making ready for something, a leading up to, a yielding. Also inherent in the word poverty is the sense of the service provided by the one who prepares, the tending in making ready. I knew that whatever else might be achieved with these children it must be imbued with the the sensitive and the thoughtful. The most I could hope for was to the create and tend a clearing across which the world may approach.

Sitting there in the tiny parish hall perched on the rocks, it was my hope that my research project would provide a space, a clearing for the words/voices of children. Their memories, stories, poems, life experiences and spoken words gleaned from the buffeting swirl of life inside and outside classroom walls would find their place here. Finger sculpted words rendered in the twirl of yellow pencils, deposited here in the furrowed wrack lines by the push of the wind. Words gathered in the roaming over the landwash, living in the eco-tone, on the margin, the border, the boundary – gathered like fragile limpet shells and polished glass.

There is something happening in education. A convergence of programs and
initiatives designed to transform education for new global realities is taking place. Since its inception in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 almost 25 years ago,
Education for Sustainability (EfS) and its principles and precepts are being taken up
to move education into its rightful place as a core component to address 21st
century challenges. Among the challenges is the creation of an informed, highly
skilled global citizenry. While these well-organized and generously supported
initiatives may not explicitly call themselves Education for Sustainability
programs, for the most part, they mirror EfS philosophies and pedagogies. I am
referring to three specific documents: Learning for a Sustainable Future’s
(LSF) Connecting the Dots: Key Strategies that Transform Learning for
Environmental Education, Citizenship and Sustainability (2014); New Pedagogies
for Deep Learning: A Global Initiative (2013) and “Learning 2030: Equinox
Blueprint for Learning”( 2013).

An EfS Primer

As it was conceived in the 90s and developed in the 2000s particularly during the UNESCO’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005 -2014 Education for Sustainability, (EfS) aims to help people to develop the attitudes,
skills, and knowledge to make informed decisions for the benefit of themselves
and others, now and in the future, and to act upon these. EfS supports the
acquisition of knowledge to understand our complex world and the development of
interdisciplinary, critical thinking, and action skills to address these
challenges with sustainable solutions. EfS or ESD (the names are used interchangeably) identifies what
citizens would know, be able to do, and value when they graduate from the
formal school system about key sustainability issues such as climate change,
energy, biodiversity, ecosystems, water, citizenship, transportation, and
poverty. EfS is experiential, authentic, and action oriented education, using
real world sources rather than relying exclusively on textbooks. EfS emphasizes
information analysis, not just information transfer. ESD brings together
elements from many curricular areas at the same time and integrates these
through a sustainability lens, ensuring that students are able to address the key
challenges we all face.

Connecting the Dots

The first program that reflects EfS philosophy and articulates the strategies required to realize the EfS visionisConnecting the Dots, a document published by the Canadian NGO Learning for a
Sustainable Future. The guide answers the question: what are the learning strategies for
environmental education that we can employ to prepare our young people to take
their place as informed, engaged citizens? The document also asks; how are
these strategies aligned with 21st century learning skills including collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking?

The “connecting the dots” in the title
refers to the research synthesized in the publication that locates and
describes strategies that develop the concepts, real-world connections and
learning skills to build engaged citizenship. The Connecting
the Dots guide illustrates for educators ways of organizing learning
experiences — in other words, the practical “how to” of learning. And without doubt, this learning aligns
very closely with the principles, precepts and practices of EfS. For example the documents outlines
specifically the “dots” to which educators can connect. For example the guide urges educators to: link
environmental, economic and social issues within subjects and across subjects;
link students to each other, their home life, their schools and their community;
link knowledge, skills and perspectives through student engagement and action;
provide a meaningful context to address numeracy, literacy, character and other
educational expectations.

New Pedagogies for Deep Learning

The second educational initiative that picks up the core philosophies, vision
and pedagogies of EfS is the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) project.
This project takes as its focal point the implementation of deep learning goals enabled by new
pedagogies and “accelerated by technology”. The group behind the initiative, led
by the well known educational scholar Michael Fullan, sees the project as a
response to the calls from policy-makers, employers, and youth to renew learning systems. NDPL is a
global cross-sector partnership — including research organizations, corporations,
education system leaders, and clusters of schools from a variety of countries.
Big players in the global change movement include the Gates Foundation,
Microsoft, Pearson and other large corporations and global players. According to the authors, “This type of
international multi-stakeholder partnership has the capacity and potential to
advance the learning agenda in ways a single entity could not otherwise
undertake.” They go on to specify,
“The initiative seeks to renew the goals for education and learning, to include
skills that prepare all learners to be life-longcreative, connected and
collaborativeproblem solvers and to be healthy, happy individuals who
contribute to the common good in today’s globally interdependent world. We need
our learning systems to encourage youth to develop their own visions about what
it means to connect and flourish in their constantly emerging world, and equip
them with the skills to pursue those visions.” This is another example of EfS
language and goals used to describe that are driving a well funded
and highly organized effort to re-orient education for the vision of EfS as outlined
in foundational UNESCO documents in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Particularly interesting is the notion of deep learning that the writers tie
directly to the broader idea of human flourishing. NPDL provides an initial
summary of deep learning skills, which they say will be further refined and
operationalized in the early stages of the project through collaboration with
partners.

The skills are;

Character education — honesty, self-regulation and responsibility,
perseverance, empathy for contributing to the safety and benefit of others,
self-confidence, personal health and well-being, career and life skills.

Citizenship — global knowledge, sensitivity to and respect
for other cultures, active involvement in addressing issues of human and
environmental sustainability.

Communication — communicate effectively orally, in writing
and with a variety of digital tools; listening skills.

Critical thinking and problem solving — think critically to
design and manage projects, solve problems, make effective decisions using a variety
of digital tools and resources.

Collaboration — work in teams, learn from and contribute to
the learning of others, social networking skills, empathy in working with diverse
others.

Creativity and imagination
— economic and social entrepreneurialism, considering and pursuing novel ideas,
and leadership for action.

Here again we see striking similarities with EfS, and LSF’s Connecting
the Dots guide in strategies and language believed to reflect the pedagogical
approaches necessary to create a global citizenship equipped to deal with challenging realities and address the problems we face presently and will
inevitably face in the future.

In 2013 Waterloo Global Science Initiative brought current leaders in
education, teaching professionals, researchers, and policymakers together with innovative
young people from across the globe. The report describes the summit this way, “This unprecedented
gathering represented six continents, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and disenfranchised
and disadvantaged communities to give a truly global and intergenerational perspective
on learning. Together, the group created a vision of a scalable, affordable,
sustainable learning system for the high school graduates of 2030.” The final report was called: Equinox
Blueprint for Learning 2030. The report outlines in detail the results of the
summit and proposes a radical re-thinking of how secondary education is
delivered and organized in all its aspects.

In broad strokes the vision for education outlines what is needed in order for high
school graduates to reach their full potential in life. High school graduates
must be:

lifelong learners who can identify and synthesize the right knowledge to
address a wide range of challenges in a complex, uncertain world

literate, numerate, and articulate

creative, critical thinkers able to collaborate with others, especially those
of different abilities and
backgrounds

open to failure as an essential part of progress

adaptable and resilient in the face of adversity

aware of the society they live in and able to understand the different
perspectives of others

self-aware and cognizant of their own strengths and limitations

entrepreneurial, self-motivated, and eager to tackle the challenges and opportunities
of their world

To achieve these goals, the Equinox group proposes a wholly different structure
for secondary learning “…one in which
traditional concepts of classes, courses, timetables, and grades are replaced
by more flexible, creative and student-directed forms of learning. This develops
deep conceptual understanding, which can then be applied in other contexts.” It is a bold, inspiring and necessary vision.

Convergence and Critical Mass

The convergence of these
three influential and potentially transformative programs and initiatives marks a
change in education that is important and profound. Almost twenty five years ago, the vision of the writers of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 planted
the seeds of what would be necessary to harness education to address the goal
of a sustainable world and the creation of an informed, compassionate citizenry with a
planetary consciousness. Through the dedication and perseverance of many educators
around the world, the vision and language, the
strategies and programs are emerging on different fronts in different places
united by a shared vision. We are approaching an educational critical mass toward the creation of a
better, more equitable world that honors and respects the undeniable interconnection
between planet, prosperity and people.

Writing about education for sustainability leads us into
that most contentious and thorny, yet most fundamental of questions, “What
are the purposes of education?” And of course this leads to other bedrock
educational questions, “What type of learning is most important as we embark on
the 21st century? What knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs do we hope to
foster in children and young people? What is worth knowing? How do school systems designed for
19th and 20th century purposes adapt to the demands and challenges of a new
century?“

Globally, we continue to face critical environmental, social, and economic
challenges such as increased poverty, human-induced climate change, rapid depletion
of our natural resources, the spread of infectious diseases, violation of human
rights, and so forth. In order to match the scale of these challenges, a whole
generation will need to be engaged to think and act in a way that enables
responsible choices about our economies, our societies, and the environment. We
require a citizenry educated to live well in the places they inhabit, but as importantly,
we need to nurture a developing sense of global citizenship. What it means to
be “educated” changes over time. The skills and knowledge necessary to be
considered “educated” in 1915 are very different than in 2015. Children entering Kindergarten in 2015
will graduate from a post secondary institution around 2030. What skills, knowledge, and aptitudes
will be required of a graduate in 2030? As educators, how do we begin to think
about preparing global citizens for the world of 2030?

There are educators who have been asking just such questions
and they are proposing a radical re-thinking
and re-orienting of education that aligns with emergent future global
realities. I do not use the word radical lightly. It certainly means as the
dictionary defines it, a “thorough or extreme change to acceptable or traditional forms.” But radical
means more. I use the word radical to recover a sense with
which the word was once imbued. The word
comes from the Late Latin radical-is and meant “the direct source or
sense.” It is a word rich in depth
and nuance as it is related to “roots and rooting.” In medieval philosophy “the radical humour” or moisture was
inherent in all plants and animals, its presence being a necessary condition of
vitality and life. It is this
sense of the word radical that I invoke; it is its reference to the
fundamental, primary, essential condition of life. Dr. Atul Gawande said
recently in the BBC 2014 Reith Lectures,“ The 20th century was the age
of the molecule; the 21st century will be the age of the system.” Education
for 2030 must be an education that is designed for a very different set of
purposes than for which education in the 20th century was designed.
The technical, managerialist, positivistic, industrial view on which education
was built is inadequate for today and certainly for 2030. We require a view of
education for “radical interconnectedness.” David Orr succinctly outlines a vision of education in which
the goal is not just mastery of subject matter but making connections. He wrote of his vision,

First, it aims toward the
establishment of a community of life that includes future generations, male and
female, rich and poor, and the natural world. The essence of community is recognition, indeed celebration,
of interdependence between all parts.
Its indicators are the requisites of sustainability, peace, harmony and
justice and participation.

We require a vision of education and curriculum that is
inclusive, encompassing, expansive, generous, life-affirming and reaches toward
a place of deep transformation.
William Pinar says curriculum theory is “about discovering and articulating,
for oneself and with others, the educational significance of the school
subjects for self and society in the ever-changing historical moment.”

In future posts I hope to delve more deeply into a radical
re-visioning of education for the community
of life and a better understanding of education’s general purposes. Much
work has been done in this area and ways forward exist. As is the case when we
speak of changing our destructive habits to safeguard the planet and human
health, we often hear, “We have the means, we have the technology, we only
require the will.” So, too it is with education. We have profoundly important
and transformative models of teaching and learning designed to dismantle
traditional and often moribund educational practices; we know of approaches that
will excite and engage children to prepare future citizens for life in the 21st
century - what we require now is
the will.